Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Jarrid Rhodes and the Palmetto Tigers played well enough to earn the No.2 seed in the Class 7A-District 10 tournament, which gets underway next week along with the rest of the boys brackets.
Here are the pairings involving local teams, with each team's seed in parentheses.
The champion and runner-up out of each district advance to the regional tournaments, which begin Thursday, Feb. 13.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Bevin Mays and the Southeast Seminoles own the top seed for next week's Class 5A-District girls basketball tournament.
Listed below are the tournament pairings involving area teams with each team's seed in parentheses.
The champion and runner-up of each district advances to the regional tournament, which gets underway Thursday, Feb. 6.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

John Warren has been named Southeast's new football coach, according to principal Jim Pauley.
Warren was an assistant at Southeast in 2012 under Paul Maechtle and spent last season as the head coach at Massac County High in Metropolis, Ill, where he went 3-6.
Warren coached the Seminoles' wide receivers and quarterbacks. He was one of four finalists for the head position, with the other three being Matt Kitchie, Brett Timmons and Brian McKnight.
"I enjoyed working with him," said Maechtle, who didn't have a hand
in choosing a successor, said of Warren. "We were disappointed to lose
him because at the time, we needed a good receivers coach.
"They
were four very good candidates, and it must have been a difficult
decision for our administration. But I think they picked a good man and I
wish him the best of luck."
Kitchie, the head coach at Tampa Leto, and Timmons, the head coach and athletic director at Out-of-Door Academy, played and coached under Maechtle at Southeast; McKnight has been on Southeast's coaching staff since 1992 and has been the defensive coordinator since 2007.
Maechtle was Southeast's head coach for 33 years and retired after the 2013 season. He will stay on as the school's athletic director until April.For more on this story, check out Wednesay's edition of The Bradenton Herald.

Manatee girl's soccer team celebrated its first district title in 15 years last week and now sets its sights on the regional playoffs, which get underway Thursday.
Here are the pairings involving area teams. All games are at 7 p.m.
Winners advance to next Tuesday's regional semifinals.

Friday, January 17, 2014

The field to replace Paul Maechtle as Southeast's head football coach has been narrowed down to four - three local candidates and another whose name should be familiar to area football fans.

MATT KITCHIE - A Southeast alum won won a state title as a player, Kitchie coached wide receivers and quarterbacks under Maechtle before taking over Saint Stephen's football rebirth in 2006. Kitchie left the Falcons in 2009 to take over head coaching duties at Land O'Lakes, but there was a parting of the ways there after an off-the-field incident involving one of his players. He has been the head coach at Tampa Leto since 2011, where he also teaches. Kitchie earned a master's degree from Eastern Kentucky and was an assistant coach and graduate assistant there in 2005-06.

BRIAN MCKNIGHT - McKnight has been on Southeast's coaching staff since 1992 and has been the defensive coordinator since 2007 and linebackers coach since 2010. McKnight was the assistant offensive line coach from 1992-98 before becoming the defensive line coach in '99. He also coached track and weightlifting at Southeast, and has been a teacher there since '99.

BRETT TIMMONS - Another Southeast graduate, Timmons has been Out-of-Door Academy's head coach since the school started a football program in 2006. He is also the school's athletic director. A member of the Noles' back-to-back state championship teams in 1993 and '94, Timmons continued his playing career at Tulane and was a member of its 1998 undefeated team. Timmons was a training camp intern with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins, and earned a NFL Minority Coaching Fellowship with the Indianapolis Colts in 2004. Timmons also served as a graduate assistant at Clemson and was Palmetto's defensive coordinator in 2005.

JOHN WARREN - Warren is looking to return to Southeast's program after he became the head coach at Massac County High in Metropolis, Ill., last season. Warren coached the quarterbacks and receivers with the Seminoles in 2012, and also served as an assistant baseball coach. Warren was also an assistant varsity coach at Cypruss Christian in Texas, where he was also the head middle school coach, from 2009-12, and was also an assistant at Fairfield Community High in Illinois in 2006.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Manatee's Caleb Rudisill was named the most outstanding wrestler during last year's county tournament, which the Hurricanes won for the third straight year and 16th time in 17 tries.
The Canes will look to lengthen that streak while the county's other teams will try to end it during this year's tournament, which gets underway 4 p.m. at Braden River.
Rudisill is ranked No.1 in Class 3A by Scout. com at 113 pounds and teammate Jesse Fulk is ranked second at 160 pounds, while Dakoda Dossey is ranked fourth at 170.
Palmetto, which won the county title four years ago is led by Anthony Viscomi, ranked ninth at 126 and Robert McLachlan, fifth at 195 in Class 2A. Lakewood Ranch's Hunter Reed is 10th at 106 pounds in 2A, Dylan Cameron is eighth at 126 and Ty McLeod is seventh at 170.
In Class 1A, Bayshore's Anthony Slack is slotted seventh at 106; Southeast's Ricky Alomodovar is fifth at 160, Gage Takacs is third at 220 and Kane Takacs is third at heavyweight.
The county championships are a dual-meet tournament.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Palmetto and Saint Stephen's are the two area teams that earned top seeds for next week's boys district soccer tournaments.
Listed below are the pairings featuring area schools with each team's seed in parentheses.
The champion and runner-up from each district qualify for the regional tournaments that get underway Thursday, Jan. 30.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Four area teams are playing this year's Sarasota Baseball Classic, which runs from March 24-27 in three separate sites in Sarasota County.
The tournament has been played since 1986. The last Bradenton-area team to win a championship at the SBC was Manatee in 2001.
Listed below are the first-round pairings involving area teams. The championship game will be played Thursday, March 27.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Lakewood Ranch's and Manatee's girls soccer teams earned top seeds for next week's district tournaments.

The winter postseason is upon us as the girls district tournaments get underway late this week and run through next week.
Listed below are the brackets featuring area teams, with the seeds in parentheses. The top two finishers in each district advance to the regional tournaments, which get underway Thursday, Jan. 23.

Manatee coach John Booth and running back Johnnie Lang each took third in Class 8A in the Coach and Player of the Year balloting for t...

About this blog

Prep Rally is all about high school sports in Manatee County. From baseball to basketball, softball to soccer, volleyball to track, swimming to wrestling and weightlifting, if they play it, you can read about it at Prep Rally.

The author, John Lembo, has covered prep sports for the Bradenton Herald since 2005.